________________
APRIL, 1907.)
ARCHÆOLOGY IN WESTERN TIBET.
87
sku thso brtancing dbu rmog mthoba dang Remain firm, and his belmet remain high! chab srid beansu rtagtu rgyas gyur cig
And may also his political power spread 1 sgrolmai rnam sprul bskal bzang rgyalmo bzhngs There resides also queen bSkal-bzang, the incar
nation of the (white) Tūrā. sras dang longs spyod chab srid rgyaspar shog May her children and abundance increase ! yzugs mdzes spyan lega lhai sras po nono royal Praise to the princes of beautiful shape and Bras
good faces, bDe ldan rnam rgyal sras Indra Boti ram rgyalbDe-ldan-rnam-rgyal, and Indra Botistod
rnam-rgyal! lbayi srasmo ycesma Nor 'adzin rgyalmo bzhugs There resides also the daughter of the gods, the
beloved princess Nor-'adsin. yab yum drungdu chosla dgabar shog
May (she] rejoice in the religion before father
and mother! chos blon chen pos dga dgi mangpo dgå.
The great ministers of faith are enjoying I ninefold happiness.
Notes. 8 mon bya; the word bya is probably related to byedpa, and the meaning of the construction would be doing prayer,' pray.
'adurdu, the exact meaning of this word I find it impossible to ascertain. In my translation I have considered it parallel to yyange-chags.
Rab-brtan-tha-rtso is the vernacular name of the castle at Basgo.
Indra-Boti-rnam-rgyal; according to the Gyal-rabs, the name of the second son is IndraBhodhi-rnam-rgyal. The name testifies to Sengge-rnam-rgyal's inclinations to Hinduism, which are also mentioned in the Cyal-rabs. The last lines are somewhat injured and cannot be read with absolute certainty.
(c) The Ancient Ruined Monastery of Basgo. Outside the present village of Basgo, a little to the east of it, on the plain between Basgo and Nyemo, there are the ruins of an ancient monastery which is generally known as Bogpoi mGonpa, the Mongol Monastery. It is locally believed to have been erected by the Mongols during the siege, c. 1646-47, but at Basgo and Nyemo almost everything ancient, of which there is no certain record, is nowadays thought to be connected with the Mongols, who are also believed to be the erectors of many & ruined mchod-rten. In most cases, however, it is quite improbable that the Mongols had anything to do with them.
As regards the Monastery, it is quite probable that it existed as such at the date of the Mongol War and was destroyed during that war. This supposition is strongly supported by the fact that there are mani-walls along the two paths which branch off from the main road and lead to the quin, because mani-walls were hardly built before 1600 in Ladakh, as a study of the votive tablets on them proves; and it is not likely that mani-walls would be constructed on a road to a ruined building which had lost its significance. These considerations go to show that these two particular mani-walls were constructed between 1800 and 1646.
The Monastery consists of a large ball, twelve paces square. On the right and left of the East side are two smaller rooms which project out from the east wall, and probably formed the ends of a gallery that once connected them. The walls are still in existence, but as the roof has long fallen, rain has destroyed the paintings with which they were once decorated. The only traces of paintings now existing are the raised medallions, the forms of which are still quite distinct. In the plate attached the arrangement of those on the West (fig. 1) and of the North and South walls (fig. 2) are shown. The East wall had none, but contains the door. Their existence creates the presumption that the Monastery was built by Kashmiri monks.
